Stay Nation faces antitrust lawsuit over alleged stay music monopoly
The US Division of Justice will reportedly file an antitrust lawsuit towards Stay Nation, the mum or dad firm of Ticketmaster, this week.
The New York Times experiences that the US Justice Division will file the lawsuit as quickly as Thursday, with sources revealing that it’ll give attention to Stay Nation’s alleged behaviour of illegally sustaining a monopoly within the stay music business.
This contains arguments of Stay Nation capitalising on its possession of Ticketmaster, which runs unique ticketing contracts with live performance venues. Stay Nation can be stated to have bolstered its means to run a monopoly by elevating costs and costs for customers although its supposed dominance over live performance excursions and venue administration.
The lawsuit was first revealed in a report by the Wall Avenue Journal in April, which claimed that Stay Nation now controls greater than 80 per cent of stay music ticket gross sales within the US since its 2010 merger with Ticketmaster. Stay Nation refuted the allegations in an announcement by its head of company affairs Dan Wall, who argued that the corporate has extra competitors than ever.
CNN experiences that ought to the lawsuit show profitable, it may pave the way in which for efficient adjustments available in the market for stay occasions. Stay Nation has but to subject a public assertion on the most recent experiences.
Final February, Stay Nation declared its greatest yr but in 2023 in an end-of-year report, citing skyrocketing live performance attendance and ticket gross sales. Ticketmaster offered 620million tickets, a 13 per cent improve from the earlier yr. Its income elevated by 32 per cent to just about $3billion.
This isn’t the primary antitrust lawsuit towards Stay Nation. In 2022, a category motion lawsuit filed by a gaggle of plaintiffs – stated to incorporate “tons of of hundreds if not hundreds of thousands” of shoppers – alleged Stay Nation was a “monster [that] should be stopped”. It was thrown out in February 2023 by a federal appeals courtroom after it was dominated that patrons had waived their proper to sue.
In December 2022, Taylor Swift followers within the US sued Ticketmaster with allegations of fraud, worth fixing and antitrust violations throughout its “verified fan” pre-sale of The Eras Tour tickets. The primary plaintiff within the lawsuit dropped it a yr later, with a courtroom submitting stating that the 2 sides had “agreed to proceed their ongoing settlement discussions by way of mediation”.